


COME HELL OR HIGH WATER

by Chubbygaygal



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, First time writing a fic, M/M, Okoye implied, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, T'Challa (Marvel) Is a Good Bro, T'Challa (Marvel) Needs a Hug, T'chaka(Marvel) is a Good Bro, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, fluff?, implied steggy, not quite MCU compliant, ulysses klaue and Erick Killmonger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 21:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chubbygaygal/pseuds/Chubbygaygal
Summary: Steve doesn't stay frozen for 70 years but washes ashore and is found by King T'chaka. The Winter Soldier doesn't kill Howard Stark. They both think the other is dead. Until they don't.





	COME HELL OR HIGH WATER

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. First fic. :)  
> Mostly AU.  
> Hope you like it.

When Steve was told that his life was going to change, he hadn’t anticipated just how much. He hadn’t anticipated just how much the change was going to affect the course of his life.

For someone who was familiar with the Last Rites being read to him several times and hands squeezing his begging him to fight, he really didn’t know the extent of the change when he agreed to be a part of Project Rebirth.

That and everything that came as a result.

As Peggy got cut off after telling him where to meet him for their date, Steve closed his eyes, silently apologizing to her. She wouldn’t be in this position if he hadn’t gone ahead and agreed to become a science experiment for the United States government. They would have never met and she would have never fallen in love with him. It wasn’t fair to her. He loved her, God he did. But he could never love her like he loved--

A sob caught in his chest. His heart was never and would never be hers. Or anyone else’s.

He didn’t think about how maybe the rescue at Azzano would never have been and how it would still have hurt anyway. No. His mind couldn’t stop torturing with the fall. That goddamn fall. He kept replaying the scenario in his head. Finding different ways he could have...should have.

Opening his eyes, tears running down his cheeks, Steve managed a smile. He would be reunited with his love. There would be no more pain. Just him and his Bucky.

**

An anguish cry fell from his lips as he stared up at the blue sky, salty water taste in his mouth and sand under him.

It hadn’t worked.

Oh God. He was still alive.

Curling into himself, the waves washing over him lightly, Steve Rogers wept.

**

King T’chaka of Wakanda was expecting a small boat, carrying two American men, who, according to the intel he’d gotten from his men, were dead set on getting their hands on some vibranium.

Not on his watch.

He found an American, sure. And the said American usually wielded a piece of vibranium.

What he did not expect was Captain America, who was crying like a man who had just lost everything.

Except, according to the news around Europe and America, Captain America had been dead for about two months.

Yet here he was. Washed up ashore.

It was hard not to sympathized. T’chaka had never heard such pain. And he was African. Some Africans tribes were popularly known for their skill in crying at funerals. T’chaka felt a lump in his throat.

Taking his helmet off, T’chaka approached the man.

The Captain heard him approach and sat up immediately. He saw the spear in T’chaka’s hand and then looked at the Black Panther.

“I can’t die. I--I tried. I c--can’t.”

That made T’chaka freeze. Tried? Was the plane crash on purpose?

“Please…” The Captain said, desperate. He didn’t say expressly what he wanted, but T’chaka saw how he looked back at the spear and understood.

T’chaka was a hard man. Showed no emotions. Felt only anger and sometime’s pride for his country. But his heart broke for the Captain.

“Do y-you understand?” The Captain asked. Not condescendingly. More like he’d just realized the man before him might not know English.

“I could take you back to your country,” T’chaka said instead.

The Captain shook his head. Resigned. “I have nothing to go back to.”

T’chaka sighed inwardly and looked to the sky. He couldn’t believe he was even considering this. Bast help him. He would never have thought that he would invite a white man into Wakanda willingly. Especially since most of Africa was still being colonized by the Europeans and was regarded as dispensable man power in the senseless World War.

But this man before him… He knew he would be faced with resistance from the elders, but the man before him was broken and lost, without anything to look forward to except death. And even that had refused him.

“Come with me.”

It would be hard. They were in West Africa and they needed to go back to the East part, undetected. Thank Bast he’d had enough foresite to bring his jet.

***********

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


***********

“Bucky?”

The soldier stopped. That word struck something in him. The man in front of him looked at him, recognition in his eyes.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

The man looked confused. “You are. You’re-- Bucky!” He coughed into his hand and the Soldier saw blood on it. “W-we thought you died. S-steve…” He turned and coughed again.

That name, Steve, struck him harder than Bucky did. There was a sharp pain in his head as a memory came and went, unable to grasp it. He had a feeling it was something important.

“Maria? Oh God. Maria?”

The Soldier had been given a clear command. Afterwards he was supposed to go back to his handlers for maintenance. A large part of him wanted to follow that command. But the other part of him, that had been growing smaller and quieter felt compelled to go against the orders and _save_ this man and woman because they held answers to which he never knew he needed. 

The people undertaking the wipes hadn’t noticed that he’d manipulated the machine slightly so that the angle was off by two degrees when it was over his head. And that made all the difference. He followed orders, and remained compliant and never did anything to call attention to the fact that he was piece by piece getting control of his own mind.

The only problem was those damn words. He needed to break away completely from those words. Otherwise it was all useless.

The man before him, Howard Stark, seemed to know the man he was before he became the Soldier. He knew he was slowly losing that part of him. He didn’t want to.

He’d dispose of his motorcycle and rid of any trace of the serum he’d been sent to take. Howard might have the answers, but that didn’t mean he had his own agendas. Otherwise, why would Hydra send the Soldier after him?

After destroying the serum, he ripped away Howard’s door and then walked to the passenger side. He’d carry the woman and take both of them to a secure location, a place he’d hidden from Hydra when he was still… the other man. 

And then … after he’d gotten his answers, he’d go after Hydra. It was a thing he thought about, no matter how many times they wiped him. 

***

“You’re avoiding me.”

He tensed as he recognized the voice behind him. Then turned, a guilty expression on his face because, yes he had been avoiding her.

“I-uh… Wasn’t sure if you remembered me today.”

She sighed, closing her eyes that were rimmed with red. She understood. The last time she had forgotten him, she’d been hysterical. Crying and angry at the same time. She said somethings that cut deep. It wasn’t pretty.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. My mind isn’t what it used to be.”

“It’s okay, Pegg. If there’s anything I can understand, it’s that,” he said with a humourless laugh.

She tilted her head and her red lips stretched into a smile. “I suppose you do, Jamie.” She sighed and turned her head to watch the people walk to their cars, on their way to the burial grounds.

“Come on. You don’t mind if this old gal rides with you, do you?”

He extended his right elbow and she slipped her arm through it. “You, Peggy? Old? Never. You’re still as breathtaking as you were in that red dress in the bar.”

She laughed. “Save that for someone else! I’m immune to the Brooklyn charm nowadays.”

They fall silent, the gravel beneath their feet. He knew that both their thoughts turned to the same person. They never talked about it. Not really. Except the time she forgot when she was and asked him why he didn’t come back fast enough, why he let them believe he was dead, why he let  _ him  _ believe that. He couldn’t answer her. So he held her as she cried, and cried with her, the guilt forever heavy on his chest.

He had been so angry. When HYRDA had him. And then when he escaped that night he almost killed Howard and Maria Stark. And the years that followed as he tried to break away from the hold HYDRA had on him through his mind. And when he finally destroyed the last of HYDRA. He was free. But he was still without the only thing he really wanted and needed.

He didn’t know who to blame. So he channeled his anger into destroying HYDRA. And when  that was done, all he was left with was a huge gaping hole in his chest.

“I’m sorry.” Peggy said as they stand before the headstone.

 

_ HOWARD STARK _

_ 1917-2003 _

_ Loving father and husband. _

_ His mission on earth fulfilled. _

 

Ironically, because of the accident, they discovered a mass in his lungs. Cancer.

He sighed and looked up. There were tears in his eyes as he thought of how he never really said goodbye to.

“Me too Pegg. Me too.”

 

****

The King of Wakanda, T’chaka, dies beside the road, a few blocks from Stark Tower. He is in the arms of James Buchanan Barnes, who had been escorting him to the airport. T’chaka had frozen when he had heard Tony Stark call him “Barnes” as they left the boardroom where he had been waiting for Tony.

Tony was probably the only person he saw more than Peggy. Mostly because he only had Peggy and Tony in his life.

It had been a brief meeting, right after the UN’s 63rd Session on the global poverty and food crisis. Fury, Stark and T’chaka had gone to Stark’s building, and sat inside for an hour, after which Fury had walked out first then Tony and T’chaka.

“Are you Bucky Barnes by any chance?” he asked.

“Don’t really go by that name anymore. Who’s asking?” The name reminded him of everyone he had lost.

The King had regarded him, then said, “Escort me to the airport. I have something important to tell you.”

Then he’d walked away. He turned to look at Tony who’d just shrugged and said, “Go. We’ll run tests on the arm later.”

Ten minutes later, the King was dying in his arms.

“He’s not dead,” the King said, coughing. The rebar sticking from the left side of his chest.

“Who?” He asked, confused.

“Your love. H-he didn’t die. He lives.”

In a moment of confusion and shock and disbelief, he briefly thought about how those words sounded like he was talking about Jesus. Because he couldn’t really believe what the King was telling him. 

Until he said, “Steve.”

James stared at the King as he tried to smile. “That’s… that’s not possible… He-- it’s been decades!” He was vaguely aware of how hysterical he sounded. He could hear sirens coming closer and closer.

The king coughed weakly. James knew death. Had seen it. Had felt it. Had caused it. The King was going to die in his arms.

“You d-died… Yet here you are.” His eyes fluttered. “Tell… tell my famil-... I love them.”

One of the King’s guard put her hand on his shoulder after James closed the King’s eyes, that no longer held life in them.

“We’ll take it from here.” Grief and anger coloured her voice.

Later, he learnt that the explosion had been caused by a man called Ulysses Klaue, a longtime enemy of Wakanda.

The guard who’d spoken to him earlier had hesitated on her way up the ramp after they had loaded the King’s body in their jet. James and Tony had insisted on escorting them to the airport. It was a sombre mood all round. James hadn’t been seriously injured, his human hand was in a sling, a fracture that would heal in a day or two. That and his broken ribs.

“The prince will be in touch.”

As he and Tony watched the jet ascend, James tried to squash the little bud of hope that had been implanted. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. But they never found his body. And somehow, a part of him believed him. Or wanted to. James himself fell to his death out of that train, yet here he was.

“Tony.”

“Yeah?”

“Steve’s alive.”

**********************

  
  
  
  
  


********************

Ulysses Klaue was dead as well as Erik Stevens, or N’Jadaka, who apparently was T’chaka’s nephew. Both of them had masterminded the attack in New York. Ulysses had wanted vibranium. N’Jadaka had wanted the crown.

The past month had been mentally and emotionally draining and Steve just wanted to go to his house in Wakanda and rest. And grieve his friend.

T’chaka had taken him in when he had no will to live, no purpose.

Before he was Captain America, and a brief moment after, all he’d wanted was to join the army and fight for his country. But being in the war, and seeing all the bloodshed and death and  _ evil  _ … Seeing the politicians and wealthy sit back and do nothing but get rich on bonds made him constantly question why he was actually doing it.

He always wanted to help. That much never changed. But he knew if he ever went back into any kind of war, he would lose himself.

T’chaka showed him another way. He still fought, but he wasn’t involved in any people’s wars that masked their own agendas, with little regard for the ones fighting their battles.

Together, they helped the drive away the colonialists in Africa and other nations still under the European rule as well as dismantling slavery. He went by Nomad outside Wakanda.

He didn’t always fight. He travelled sometimes. He’d left his old life behind, except for the one time he went back to the States. It had been in the eighties when he had been missed the people he’d left behind. He’d met with the two remaining Howling Commandos, Gabe and Dum Dum, who were in the same Nursing Home. He’d tracked them down and visited them. Kind of. He’d stood at the doorway of the common room for five minutes before he’d turned and left. And the he’d heard his name when he was walking out of the main door.

Gabe Jones. He almost didn’t turn. And then he did. Gabe regarded him for a moment before nodding. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”

Steve nodded, a lump in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he’d  muttered.

Gabe shook his head and smiled. “None of that. We understood.” They’d known, somehow. They never talked about it, but they knew and didn’t quite mind.

Steve walked forward and hugged his friend. Gabe hugged him back, strong. “You take care of yourself, Steve.”

Steve laughed, pulling away. “You too, Gabe.” He bit his lip.

“I won’t say anything.” Gabe said, reading his mind. “‘Cept maybe Dum Dum doesn’t really remember things no more. So he won’t tell no one anyway.”

Steve nodded. Then turned and walked away.

He’d also gone to see Peggy. Which was more like he waited outside her building to see a glimpse of her. She’d been with her daughter, laughing. She’d had a good life. Steve was glad she found someone who could give her what he couldn’t.

T’challa stood at the cockpit as they prepared to descend, his Black Panther helmet off, hands behind his back. Steve had seen him grow and he felt some pride at the great King he would be. The coronation ceremony was the next day and Steve knew he would be unchallenged. Except maybe by M’baku of the Jabari tribe. There had been talk of how he wanted the crown but Steve was confident that T’challa would manage.

“Steve, a word before you retire to your house,” T’challa said after they had landed and greeted the Queen Mother and the Princess, Shuri, who was like a little sister to Steve.

Steve followed T’challa to a small meeting room. When he closed the door, he turned to the Prince, who was facing the window, tense. “What’s up?” He asked when T’challa didn’t immediately speak.

“I’ve known you all my life, Steve. You’re like family to me. I would say you’re like a brother to me even.” T’challa turned and there was a smile on his face. “You’ve fought alongside my father and now, beside me.”

Steve nodded, not sure where this was headed. In the last 60 or so years he’d been in Wakanda, Steve had remained almost the same. Tests showed he’d only aged 10 years. He wasn’t immortal. Steve had been a little relieved. He wouldn’t be doomed to walk this earth forever. But he still had a long way to go.

“When my father died, he had been leaving Stark’s building in New York. There was a man… The General said my father asked him to escort him to the airport.” T’challa wasn’t looking at him. Steve felt a ball of anxiety in his stomach. He didn’t know what this was about, but he had a feeling it was big.

“Bast, I don’t know how to say this.”

Steve swallowed. “What is it, T’challa?”

T’challa sighed. “Once… you told me about the love of your life… The man… and the train, yes?”

Steve’s heart was beating so loudly in his chest. He didn’t like this. He hadn’t spoken about him in so long. Even if he dreamt with him almost every night. He’d avoided thinking about him in so long, so that he could move on with his life. He could feel the familiar ache in his chest as T’challa went on.

“The General, she says the man who was with my father during his last moments--”

“NO!” Steve shouted, stepping back until his back hit the door. “Y-you…”

T’challa looked like he was in pain. “Brother, I wouldn’t lie to you.” This he said in Khosa. “I didn’t believe it either. I had to do my own research and prove it before I brought it to you. I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t prove its authenticity.”

Steve was shaking. He could barely breathe, his throat constricted.

T’challa touched one of his kimoyo beads and Steve’s breath caught in his chest as a hologram of an image appeared. He wanted to deny that this wasn’t him.

But it was. It was his face under the long hair and beard and… Steve needed to sit down.

“How?” He sounded choked up. “I saw him… I let him fall…”

T’challa sighed and sat beside him. “You’ll have to talk to him about that yourself. He’s been living with Tony Stark for a while now. That’s how my father met him.”

Steve didn’t know what to feel. He’d spent the last years mourning. And now… 

“Do you wanna see him?” T’challa said, sotto voce. “He’s here.”

Steve snapped his head. “Bucky’s here?” He couldn’t recognize his voice.

T’challa smiled. “Yes. Apparently, when my father was dying, he told him that you were alive. I went to see him, before we went to find Klaue.”

Steve felt like a dam ready to bust with all the emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

“Does he--”

“He wants to see you, yes.”

Steve didn’t know what to do. Yes he wanted to see him. But he was scared. He was terrified. So much time had passed. So much had happened. Steve had been numb most of the time. So  terribly lonely. And… And he hadn’t caught him when he’d fallen on that train. He had failed him, and had been punished by watching him fall to his death, and relived that moment over and over in his dreams. What if Bucky hated him now? What if Bucky only wanted to say goodbye, a proper one? What if he wanted nothing to do with him ever again? Would he survive having to see him only for a moment just for Bucky to leave him? Could he really do this?

“Steve?”

T’challa sounded worried, but oh so far away. Belatedly, he realized he was on the verge of a panic attack. T’challa had a hand between his shoulder blades.

“You have to breathe, brother. You don’t have to see him if you don’t--”

“No,” Steve managed to get out, as he tried to get himself together.

A few minutes later, he nodded and sat up straight slowly. If a glimpse is all he got, then he was okay. Just to confirm that Bucky was alive. And would be okay. The rest didn’t matter. He’d find a way to pick himself back up again. He hoped.

Bucky had been sleeping in the palace, so it didn’t take very long before he and T’challa were stood before the door that separated him and Bucky. Steve felt like breaking down. But he took a deep breath and nodded at T’challa.

T’challa knocked and opened the door. Steve didn’t move as T’challa poked his head into the room. “James?”

Steve clenched his fists, sweaty with anxiety and panic. He heard a low murmur before T’challa opened the door fully, gesturing for Steve to enter. “I’ll leave you two.”

He put his hand on Steve’s shoulder and squeezed almost painfully, then left.

Steve moved inside, slowly, feeling like this was some kind of dream. He froze by the door when he saw him, standing by the window facing him, his hands in his jeans pocket.

He looked a little older since Steve had seen him, but only by five years or so. He looked more muscular, and paired with the long hair and beard, he looked, rougher. But every bit of the Bucky Steve had known almost all his life.

They studied each other for a while, taking note of all the changes that had occurred and hadn’t occured over the years, none of them saying a thing.

“Hey there Stevie,” Bucky said, a tremor in his voice.

Steve tried to get words out, to reply. Instead, the dam finally broke, and Steve fell to his knees, sobbing. Bucky was there before he even got to his knees, and held Steve tightly and close to him, his head buried in Bucky’s chest.

“I got you, Steve. I got you. I’m here.” He was crying too.

Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky, wrapping his mind around the fact that he was here, he was real and alive. His heart beating beneath his head, his arms warm around him.

It was dark when Steve opened his eyes. His chest still racked his body, but the tears had long since stopped.

Bucky was running his hand through his hair, occasionally burying his nose in his hair and inhaling, and then squeezing him tight.

“You okay there?” He whispered. Steve nodded, not wanting to let go of Bucky, but sitting up so he could look at him.

“Hey.” Bucky said, his voice small, rough, smiling a little.

“Hi.” Steve whispered. “Y-you’re alive.”

Bucky nodded and then laughed, his eyes watering. “So are you, you little shit.”

Steve lay his forehead on Bucky’s shoulder. “How? I saw you fall.” His voice caught at the last word.

Bucky threaded his fingers through Steve’s hair. “Remember Azzano?” Steve nodded. “They injected me with stuff. Like they tried to recreate the  serum they gave you… so I fell, but… didn’t die. I uh… lost my left hand.”

Steve lifted his head, confused. Bucky had two arms wrapped around him. Bucky smiled nervously as he pulled away a little and removed the glove over his left hand. Steve gasped when he saw the metal fingers wiggling in front of him. “Bucky…”

He felt Bucky tense. Then huffed out a laugh. “Haven’t been called Bucky in a long time.”

Steve remembered how T’challa had called him James. “Sorry. James.”

He shook his head. “No it’s fine. It’s just that… I couldn’t hear that name and not think of you. Hurt too much.” His voice went gruff, like a lump had formed in his throat.

Steve understood that. “God, I’ve missed you. So much. 63 years, Buck.”

He thought he’d cried enough. Apparently he hadn’t. Bucky held him close anyway. Running his hand through his hair.

***

At some point, they moved to the couch because the floor was beginning to take its toll. He answered all Steve’s whispered questions; how he was taken by Hydra to become their “fist”, how they gave him the metal arm, and wiped his memory, how he escaped through Howard, how Peggy and Howard helped him get the most of his old self back, how he lost he felt when he remembered Steve only to hear he’d died… 

Through it all, Steve kept apologizing even though he kept telling him he didn’t need to. How there’s nothing to forgive. He realized that Steve blamed himself for his fall and that broke his heart… that he’d carried all that guilt for all these years.

“You got nothing to apologize for, you jerk.” He’d said.

He told him about Howard and Peggy and Tony. Steve told him about meeting T’chaka, and what he’s been up to the past 63 years.

They must have fallen asleep at some point in the night, because the next time Bucky woke up, it was morning, the sun in his eyes and Steve still asleep beside him, holding his metal hand.

He took the moment to study Steve’s face. He’d grown a beard and let his hair grow longer. Seemed like they’d been on the page on that one. He had a few lines on his face that came with age, but he was still the same Steve he’d grown up with and fallen for. He still loved Steve. That much he knew. His heart could never belong to another. The kind of love between him and Steve was an intense and passionate type of love, one that consumed every part of their being… He could never explain it, and gave up years ago trying to understand it. The simple explanation was that Steve and him, were it for each other forever. Wasn’t this proof enough? That they’d been through hell and still the universe had fought for them?

He saw the flutter of Steve’s incredibly long lashes, before they opened. Those eyes. God, he thought he’d never see them again. Those eyes were looking at him with so much love, Bucky felt overwhelmed with it.

They ate their breakfast in silence, their legs crossed under the table, smiling shyly at each other when they made eye contact.

They walked to Steve’s house because Steve had just come from literally avenging his friend, and he needed to shower and change and maybe rest longer. Bucky didn’t mind. They had all the time in the world.

Later, when Steve lay by his side on the bed, showered and changed, Steve whispered, “Now what?”

Bucky turned on his side, and Steve did the same. “Now… we finally get to live. Fully.”

Steve broke eye contact, picking at invisible lint on his sweatpants. Bucky waited for him to ask what he wanted.

“You live in New York. And I live here.”

Bucky laughed.“Til the end of the line, pal. You’re not getting rid of me ever. Wherever you go, wherever you are, I’m gonna follow you anywhere.”

Steve huffed. “That’s what killed you last time.”

Bucky moved closer and put slid his hand to cup his face. And then he kissed him. Steve, surprised, didn’t react at first. Until he did. God he’d missed Steve. So much.

When they broke away, because even super soldiers need air at some point, Bucky pressed his forehead to Steve’s. “You should know by now, Stevie, you’re stuck with me. Come hell or high water… it’s me and you, together, however long forever is. I ain’t going nowhere.”

  
  
  
  



End file.
